Discipline helps Warriors bury 'Polynesian football'

Roy Masters

'Polynesian football'' is dead. It expired at AAMI Park, Melbourne, on Saturday night when the Warriors defeated the Storm 20-12.

The so-called South Pacific style is a pejorative term, meaning a brand of football where the ball is thrown around in a carnival, cavalier, almost playground style. It implies a lack of discipline, a high-risk strategy that produces big scores, with little regard for defence.

Ivan Cleary's Warriors showed they can win matches with an organised, committed approach built on the two principal tenets of the modern game - field position and completed sets. Against Melbourne, they won the penalties 5-1, dropped the ball perhaps once in each half and defended ruthlessly.

The referee helped them by standing the Storm back 13 metres and the Warriors 10 metres. It can be assumed this was done to negate the Storm's superior wrestling technique in the tackle. By forcing the defenders to run back an extra three metres, it allowed the Warriors' wide bodies to develop momentum, crash through tackles and launch kicks on the final tackle from the Storm's half of the field.

Committed ... Manu Vatuvei of the Warriors is tackled during the NRL second preliminary final match between the Storm and the Warriors. Photo: Getty Images

The errors emanating from wild offloads did not come. The possession that Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy expected from penalties and mistakes simply didn't allow the Storm to bomb volatile winger Manu Vatuvei.

The stereotype Polynesian football also implies a lack of endurance, a dependence on high rotation of quickly tiring forwards. There was no evidence of this in the Warriors' past two semi-finals.

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In both their recent finals victories against Wests Tigers and the Storm, they scored the last try and were full of running in the second half.

It's hard to know when the Warriors abandoned the laissez-faire style but Bellamy says: ''Polynesian football, or whatever people like to call it, certainly died on Saturday night.''

Their form over the season follows an erratic pattern - three losses, a couple of wins, a loss to Manly who they meet in Sunday's grand final, five consecutive wins followed by four losses, then four wins, a narrow loss to Brisbane, two more wins and a loss and a win to end the regular season. The Broncos whacked them 40-10 in the first semi-final. Yet most of the mistakes came from one man, volcanic Vatuvei. Maybe Cleary, a man who displays all the emotion of a toll collector, has taught them the value of patience. Bellamy says: ''The Warriors don't have to play the so-called Polynesian style. They are so big, they can simply drive forward and develop momentum in the orthodox manner.''

Exhibit A for a player who has learnt the regimented style practised in the NRL is the Storm's Adam Blair, who has transferred to Wests Tigers.

He came to the Melbourne system as a 15-year-old and is the club's most disciplined offloader, a low tackler and most significantly, an 80-minute player.

Furthermore, the Warriors have the ''spine'' so crucial to top teams - the men who wear jumpers No.1, No.6, No.7 and No.9. Half Shaun Johnson and fullback Kevin Locke are particularly dangerous.

The Warriors also have their under 20 and NSW Cup teams in Sunday's grand finals.

It's relevant to recall a visit made to Auckland over a decade ago by the NRL's then-chief executive, David Moffett, and David Gallop, who was then the NRL's legal officer.

The pair set out to convince wealthy businessman Eric Watson to buy the Warriors. Gallop used an analogy to explain the difference between acquiring a sporting team and a business.

''I told Eric that buying a football team was not like a bookshop, where you have a high turnover, stocking up on the bestsellers and discounting the titles that don't sell,'' Gallop says.

''I said: 'You can't just throw old books out and replace them with new ones. You've got to have community engagement and on-field success.'

''Eric listened carefully and when we left the meeting, I asked Moffett how Eric had made his money. 'He owns a number of businesses,' Moffett told me, 'including a chain of bookstores.'

''I'll stick with [the analogy] and say Eric's certainly developed some home-grown authors. Without his investment, the Warriors may not be in the competition now.''